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Domestic Firms Play Oral Antiviral Catchup As China Approves Paxlovid

 
• By Dexter Jie Yan

With home-grown 3CL protease inhibitors for COVID-19 still shrouded in uncertainty, some companies in China are now turning to oral RNA polymerase inhibitors as a nearer term option for both mild-to-moderate and severe patients.

China oral antiviral
China's desire for oral COVID antivirals only temporarily fulfilled by foreign drugs • Source: Alamy

Chinese biotechs are making renewed efforts to roll out oral COVID-19 antivirals able to treat more patients including those with severe disease, given that domestic regulatory authorities have just approved Pfizer Inc.’s combination drug Paxlovid (nirmatrelvir plus ritonavir) for conditional emergency use for the treatment of mild-to-moderate disease in adults.

Hong Kong- and Shanghai-listed Shanghai Junshi Biosciences Co., Ltd. told investors in a call on 12 February that VV116, its oral derivative of RNA-dependent RNA polymerase inhibitor remdesivir, developed by Gilead Sciences, Inc

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